Recently, my friend told me his internal compass is a standard for right and wrong. Dr. Fauci apparently has his own internal compass as well:
“First of all, I think my own personal ethics on life are, I think, enough to keep me going on the right path,” he said, adding that the “organizational church” had “enough negative aspects,”
“I’m not against it,” he said, almost apologetically. “I identify myself as a Catholic. I was raised, I was baptized, I was confirmed. I was married in the church. My children were baptized in the church.
“But as far as practicing it, it seems almost like a pro forma thing that I don’t really need to do.”
Follow God’s standard or fall into chaos with your own standard or other worldly standard. If anything convinces me of this, it is Dr. Fauci saying his personal ethics are enough to keep himself on the right path. Nobody in recent memory caused more harm to the reputations of medicine and science in such a short period. I have wondered how Dr. Fauci justified his actions the last few years. Maybe this statement provides a clue.
Roll the Tape
January 21, 2020, the first U.S. COVID-19 case was confirmed. Dr. Fauci was interviewed by Newsmax: “Bottom line, we don’t have to worry about this one, right?”
Fauci: “Obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kind of things the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the Department of Homeland Security is doing. But this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”
January 26, 2020 Fauci spoke to John Catsimatidis, syndicated radio host. “What can you tell the American people about what’s been going on? Should they be scared?”
Fauci: “I don’t think so. The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States, but it’s something we, as public health officials, need to take very seriously.”
February 5, 2020: Fauci wrote:
“Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.
“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”
March 8, 2020: ”There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes.
Let’s go way back. The CDC found after the 2009 swine flu epidemic that masks were not useful:
https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm
Information on the effectiveness of facemasks and respirators for decreasing the risk of influenza infection in community settings is extremely limited. Thus, it is difficult to assess their potential effectiveness in decreasing the risk of 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus transmission in these settings. In the absence of clear scientific data, the interim recommendations below have been developed on the basis of public health judgment, the historical use of facemasks and respirators in other settings for preventing transmission of influenza and other respiratory viruses, and on current information on the spread and severity of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus.
In community and home settings, the use of facemasks and respirators generally are not recommended. However, for certain circumstances as described in Table 1, a facemask or respirator may be considered, specifically for persons at increased risk of severe illness from influenza.
Use of N95 respirators or facemasks generally is not recommended for workers in non-healthcare occupational settings for general work activities.
Masks were recommended only for those who are ill or in poor health, not for kids in school, not for shopping, going to the gym, the movies, or out to eat, NOT FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT YET INFECTED AND IN GOOD HEALTH.
Dr. Fauci was certainly aware of this study in March 2020. It may have even been a source for his original recommendations.
The US experienced several serious flu outbreaks in the 20th century, including the devastating 1918 pandemic, far deadlier than COVID, yet masks for the general public were not recommended.
Yet, April 3, 2020, three months into the COVID pandemic, the CDC reversed course. Dr. Fauci, head of President Trump’s and President Biden’s COVID task force, made masking a policy linchpin the next three years. My debating partner defends Dr. Fauci:
I think the propaganda machine has made Fauci into an incompetent person. First, I think he did the best he could with the information he had. Of course he made mistakes. He tried to recover from them, but the haters gotta hate and whenever the scientists pivoted with newly understood information he was lambasted for not knowing everything ahead of time. COVID was something we had not ever seen and everyone was scared.
But why completely reverse course three months into the pandemic?
Did Dr. Fauci recover and adjust to a changing situation, as my friend suggested? After supporting masks April 2020, he stayed the course despite numerous critics and much evidence showing masks ineffective.
February, 2021. Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN Americans should continue to wear masks and lockdown for the rest of the year and into 2022. Fauci: Possible we could still be wearing masks in 2022 (cnn.com). At the time, I wondered why continue to recommend masking after being vaccinated. Isn’t the point of vaccination to eliminate the risk? The data was not adding up.
Haters gotta hate my friend suggests. There was good reason to doubt Dr. Fauci’s judgment. Doctor after doctor, clinician after clinician, academic after academic objected to his policies. As time wore on, I suspected more than an error in judgment; the public was deliberately misled:
- Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor at Harvard Medical School and a leader in disease surveillance methods and infectious disease outbreaks, argued against widespread public mask mandates from the beginning. He described lockdowns and masking policies this way; “after 300 years, the Age of Enlightenment has ended.”
- Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist said, “face masks are an easy solution, and I’m deeply distrustful of easy solutions to complex problems”.
- Dr. Ezekial Immanuel, former Biden medical advisor (Obamacare architect) said the only masking solution is an N-95 (which the public is not trained for. nor prepared to use); cloth masks are not effective https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08/11/ezekiel-emanuel-simple-cloth-masks-are-not-good-enough/.
- Dr. Michael Osterholm, another former Biden advisor said the same thing in 2021: https://mnfan.org/2021/08/18/mn-dr-osterholm-cloth-face-coverings-arent-enough-to-combat-covid-only-n-95/.
- Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford University, member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force said: “There is no good science on general population, widespread, in all circumstances, mask wearing.” https://video.foxnews.com/v/6180319589001#sp=show-clips.
- Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC director through January 2021 complained about the lack of evidence to justify masking kids in school later in 2021. Redfield took aim at CDC school masking guidance saying the policy should be “grounded in data rather than opinion.” source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-cdc-director-redfield-masking-children-must-be-grounded-in-data-not-cdc-opinion
In the meantime, the White House (under Dr. Fauci’s direction still) provided Tik-Tok videos. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much science to share (and not much mask wearing either): https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/08/10/white-house-intern-tiktok-video/?amp
Three doctors in the following podcast– Drs. Alexander (COVID task force member) Victory, and Dr. Drew Pinksy (radio host) concurred: not a single COVID policy was effective: not lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, social distancing, vaccine mandates.
Every government policy failed miserably. Dr. Alexander asserted “CDC is one full year behind the science . . . The CDC has been an absolute failure . . . their guidance has been wrong–repeatedly”.
CDC Director: “There is No Science. We Made it Up. ” Yes, We Already Knew.
Are all these doctors propagandists or haters? Am I wrong to favor their opinions over Dr. Fauci’s and to reference studies from the last similar event in 2009?
Clinicians, doctors who dealt with actual COVID cases, unlike Dr. Fauci who has not treated patients in 50 years, spoke also. In 2021, two doctors from the Evergreen, Oregon clinic posted:
All studies are not equal. The gold standard of medical evidence comes from randomly controlled studies. Recent observational studies that were used to support mask mandates were poorly designed for confounding factors, carried out in medical environments, and then, impressions were extrapolated to the general public. Studies that evaluated the viral exposure of mice in a cage covered with mask material vs. caged mice without a mask cover does not seem to translate well to a world of humans who use their hands. In contrast, a recent Danish mask study of the general public that was performed in a prospective, randomized fashion did not endorse the current majority narrative and was vigorously criticized and suppressed by some.
Logic argues against mask effectiveness. The size differential between viral particle or droplet size expelled from the human respiratory tract compared to the filter size of surgical or cloth masks is substantial. If you read the fine print on most consumer masks, one will likely read a statement such as this; “not intended for medical purposes and has not been tested to reduce the transmission of disease”.
This post was censored because it challenged official U.S. government policy. Perhaps following sentiment was too much:
Because one of the greatest losses in this pandemic has been the loss of credibility of organizations for whom we held in high regard. Organizations such as the CDC, WHO and Public Health Organizations that need to maintain the trust of the citizens.
Of course, Dr. Fauci himself wasn’t censoring, but he was condoning by remaining silent on this topic. A year earlier, Dr. Bhattacharya, Dr. Kulldorff, another MD from Oxford and dozens of medical co-signers offered a different COVID strategy: https://gbdeclaration.org/. This time, it was Dr. Fauci and his boss who sought to censor, calling their critics “fringe epidemiologists”. These fringe doctors have the more impressive credentials.
Dr. Fauci abandoned God’s standards for his own and this is what was wrought. Perhaps he thought he was doing well, but his personal standard failed him.
to-mask-or-not-to-mask-that-is-the-question
Double Masking:
Everyone was scared of COVID initially, yes, but a year later, in January 2021, Dr. Fauci posited double-masking: https://www.today.com/health/dr-fauci-shows-how-wear-2-masks-correctly-today-t208765. One mask was not working so well, so let’s try two.
Amazingly, after a week Dr. Fauci changed his mind on double-masking. This is how politicians, not scientists and medical advisors to the presidents, act when the public response is overwhelmingly negative.
Fauci on double masking:
“There’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference” pic.twitter.com/ptVivQfuwt— Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) January 31, 2021
Fauci: “There are many people who feel you know, if you really wanna have an extra little bit of protection, maybe I should put two masks on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s no data that indicates that that is gonna make a difference and that’s the reason why the CDC has not changed their recommendations.”
During this same interview, Fauci was also asked: what is the best mask?
“Just wear a mask, any mask.”
In other words, all masks are good: the mask stuck in your back pocket during the last week, the mask you’ve slobbered over all day, the mask you forgot to wash last night, the mask the nice lady at the hospital front desk breathed all over before she handed it to you; it doesn’t matter if it is a paper mask, cloth mask, N-95, or duct tape; just wear a darned mask for goodness sake. This is the decision making my friend defends?
Dr. Fauci apparently never met a restriction he didn’t like. You can never be too safe.
Are masks themselves even safe? Should Dr. Fauci have pondered this question? A group of Florida parents submitted six face masks worn by their kids to a lab for analysis. The resulting report found five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria.
The analysis detected 11 dangerous pathogens on the masks:
• Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)
Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)
• Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)
• Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)
• Escherichia coli (food poisoning)
• Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)
• Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)
• Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)
• Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)
• Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)
Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.
The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling.
Nothing to see here?
My pediatrician posted this in a 2021 newsletter around the same time:
“Put the Kids First” – a Washington Post opinion piece hits the nail on the head for what we should be doing for children. The article states: “Here’s one simple recommendation: Children should return to their normal lives this summer and in the upcoming school year, without masks and regardless of their vaccination status.”
Contrast this statement with the CDC’s guideline comments on May 28th, “Camps can safely reopen without masks and distancing if EVERYONE is fully vaccinated against Covid19.” By definition, they are really stating that kids will be masked and distanced despite all of the data against this policy because everyone being vaccinated will absolutely not nor ever happen. Vaccination history in America has already proven this fact. It is fundamentally illogical to ask for every child to be vaccinated as the backdrop for easing policies that are really no longer necessary based on all of the past 14 months school based transmission research, circulating viral volume and childhood disease risk. Yet, somehow, the CDC, our most trusted source of infectious disease information, says exactly that.
The opinion piece also states rightly, “Overall, the risk to children is too low to justify the remaining restrictions they face. Somewhere between 0.1 and 1.9 percent of covid-19 infections in children result in hospitalizations — and that’s likely an overestimate given that recent studies suggest approximately 40 percent of pediatric covid-19 admissions were misclassified. The risk of a child developing MIS-C, a serious inflammatory condition with effective treatments, is less than 1 in 1,000. The virus has claimed the lives of nearly 400 children in 17 months, lower than the estimated deaths among children in recent influenza seasons.”
In his November 2023 newsletter, he is more emphatic:
Mask mandates for children did not work, again! “We successfully replicated the original result using 565 counties; non-masking counties had around 30 additional daily cases per 100,000 children after two weeks of schools reopening. However, after nine weeks, cases per 100,000 were 18.3 in counties with mandates compared to 15.8 in those without them. In a larger sample of 1832 counties, between weeks 2 and 9, cases per 100,000 fell by 38.2 and 37.9 in counties with and without mask requirements, respectively.” (Chandra et. al. 2023)
Never again should we follow blindly the anti-science based recommendations that caused harm with a perceived benefit.
Does our pediatrician hate Dr. Fauci or is he following the science?
My son’s high school sports association decided to mask kids on the cross country trail in 2020. Thankfully, that idiocy was reversed and kids only had to wear masks at the starting line and re-mask after finishing. Still, parents couldn’t watch races from fifty feet away as kids zoomed by. Dr. Fauci set the tone and others followed.
Did masks even prevent transmission? Should Dr. Fauci have pondered that question?
The results below show LA county, which imposed mask mandates, had almost double the cases (per capita) and more than double the deaths (again, per capita) than nearby Orange county, which imposed no mask mandate. Go figure.
Summer 2021: Texas and Mississippi lifted mask mandates as it appeared the risk of COVID was diminishing. President Biden called their governors “Neanderthals”. Dr. Fauci also said it was a “heartless action”. In the ensuing month, cases in both states fell dramatically. How could that be?
There was no consistent correlation between the rise and fall of COVID cases and mask mandates. Any positive correlation was strictly coincidental.
Sorry. Dr. Fauci was not unfairly criticized or hated by people who just gotta hate.
Lockdowns
Former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins has admitted that tunnel vision handicapped the development of public policy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plenty criticized lockdown policy while Drs. Fauci and Collins battled tunnel vision. Dr. Fauci also battled his political boss, President Trump, over this matter. Trump wanted to open the nation by Easter 2020, but was continually thwarted by Dr. Fauci and governors who saw an opportunity to impact the upcoming election.
Dr. Jay Bhattachayra, professor at Stanford, was a frequent lockdown critic; in this 2021 interview, he states plainly lockdowns were problematic: Latest-Science-on-COVID-Dr-Jay_Bhattacharya-Max-Lugavere-Gina-Florio. He says: the logic for lockdowns was unsophisticated, the risk to the younger population was vastly overstated, the government unnecessarily panicked individuals, the policy was not well thought through, counter-productive, was basically inhumane, and was incredibly damaging (lockdown comments start around minute ten).
Dr. Bhattachayra’s colleague at Stanford Dr. John Ioannidis spoke early on problems as well:
Ioannidis, 55, insists he is doing what he has always done: following the data and sometimes contending with the head winds of conventional wisdom or popular opinion. He says governments should focus on protecting the sick and elderly from infection while keeping businesses and schools open for the less vulnerable.
“There is a lethal virus circulating out there. We all have responsibility to do our best to contain it as much as possible. It’s not a joke. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not fake,” he told The Washington Post. “But we don’t panic. We don’t destroy our world. We don’t freeze everything.”
Dr. Collins made excuses two years later, after ignoring those suggesting the more reasonable path. Public health experts simply chose the wrong path. There should be accountability.
The problems with lockdowns seemed obvious to medical lay people like me. Some governors recognized the lunacy and loosened state restrictions in early 2020. South Dakota never had any COVID restrictions, so its governor and Dr. Fauci quarelled.
In a 2021 CPAC speech, Governor Kristi Noem said Dr. Fauci told her directly: South Dakota would peak around 10,000 concurrent hospitalizations in 2020; the number never reached more than 600. That’s a stark discrepancy. She refused to follow the Fauci model, and appeared to be correct for doing so.
Dr. Fauci quickly fired back at the governor. He told CNN, “the numbers don’t lie”. https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-fires-back-south-dakota-governor-over-covid-caseloads-says-numbers-dont-lie-1572662.
Numbers don’t lie, but NIH directors mislead. Every state had a COVID surge and Dr. Fauci jumped when it was South Dakota’s turn in the barrel. However, looking strictly at numbers, as Dr. Fauci suggests, we can compare state death rates.
New York, “did it right,” per Dr. Fauci Coronavirus cases: Dr Fauci says New York ‘did it correctly’ in fight against COVID – ABC7 San Francisco (abc7news.com) In 2021, when Fauci spoke of this matter, New York had the second highest per capita death rate. What?
The COVID totals are still tallied. After four years, the U.S. has had more than 1.1 million COVID deaths. New York still ranks 11th in deaths per capita and South Dakota ranks 24th; South Dakota had a 14% lower (per capita) rate over those four years. It is strictly by the numbers as Dr. Fauci suggests.
Lockdowns also damaged economies. South Dakota in 2021 had the nation’s lowest unemployment rate (still 3rd lowest in 2024). New York was near the bottom then (46th) and still (42nd today).
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Per Dr. Fauci, South Dakota should have been more restrictive to achieve the same bad results as New York. Who is he kidding? Numbers don’t lie, per Dr. Fauci.
When Georgia eased COVID restrictions in the Spring 2020, they were: “experimenting in human sacrifice”
Georgia also had fewer deaths per capita than New York, one of the last to lift restrictions. Why create a panic with such headlines?
I am Not Political
I knew Dr. Fauci was a fraud when he said this October 12, 2020.
“It’s so clear that I’m not a political person, and I have never — either directly or indirectly — endorsed a political candidate. And to take a completely out of context statement and put it in which is obviously a political campaign ad, I thought was really very disappointing.”
Why did Dr. Fauci side with certain governors and presidents while attacking others? Dr. Fauci consistently criticized folks on the Right like Governor Noem (despite good results). This seems like a politicization of COVID.
Dr. Fauci was a trained physician, yet he fashioned himself a public policy maker. This was a major problem.
Dr. Fauci never cautioned against panic or hyperbole. Instead, he egged it on. Many other medical authorities tried to put things in perspective.
Perhaps his moral compass allows for bending of the truth because he thinks the public is too stupid to assimilate all the facts or it achieves his goals. God’s standard doesn’t allow for exceptions.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour Exodus 20:16
Before COVID, so many of us implicitly trusted doctors opinions. Today, I believe Dr. Fauci and other government representatives had no commitment to truth. There were too many lies and too many cozy relations with big business, media, and politicians. He said he isn’t a politician, but he sure acted like one.
On Vaccines
Even in 2021, a year after Dr. Fauci arrived on the scene, I still wanted to believe. I had always believed public health officials were dedicated to the health of their patients and would not be diverted by politics. So, I got my COVID vaccine and booster and convinced my wife to vaccinate as well.
During the Summer of 2021, questions started arising regarding vaccines. We knew by then masks were worthless and lockdowns were counter productive. We were already dubious of vaccinating our teenagers given the low risk to children, but vaccines were at least safe and effective, right? My trust in Dr. Fauci’s credibility had not yet plunged to rock bottom.
An FDA advisor urged a cautious approach during the summer of 2021. This was apparently a bridge too far.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/health/fda-advisers-covid-vaccines-kids/index.html
Dr. Cody Meissner, director of pediatric infectious diseases at Tufts University School of Medicine, said children are at low risk of severe disease from the virus and more study is needed about safety in younger age groups.
“Before we start vaccinating millions of adolescents and children, it’s important to find out what the consequences are,” Meissner said, noting a low Covid-19 hospitalization rate among children.
“As more people are immunized and become immune from infection, I think it’s likely that we are going to get this pandemic under pretty good control,” he said.
“I do not feel we can justify an EUA. The burden of disease is so small and the risks are just not clear.”
Other FDA officials it appears were forced out so consensus could be reached.
source: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fda-officials-resign-covid/2021/09/01/id/1034608/
Two top Food and Drug Administration officials resigned Tuesday over the Biden administration’s announced plans to roll out COVID-19 booster shots before the agency had approved the inoculations, Politico reports.
Politico, which spoke to 11 current and former health officials, said the FDA “is facing a potential mutiny among its staff and outside vaccine advisers, several of whom feel cut out of key decisions and who view the plan to offer boosters to all adults as premature and unnecessary.”
Dr. Robert Malone, the man who patented mRNA many years earlier, warned in August 2021 of the lack of vaccine durability, the lack of efficacy in stopping infections and transmissibility (called leaky vaccines), the potential for the vaccines to actually enhance the deadliness of the virus (called ADE, Antibody Dependent Enhancement), and more. Our strategy for vaccinations, he said, needed to be more targeted. I was taken aback when he indicated vaccines lasted only six months.
Advance to the 49 minute mark of this interview. This is a fascinating and very important interview if you are a doctor or a layman who wants to know more.
A Chaotic Day | Guest: Dr. Robert Malone | 8/3/21 (rumble.com)
I could continue given more time. The vaccine story got worse in 2022 and 2023.
I am Science
Dr. Fauci judged his own actions by his own standard. He says he is a non-practicing Catholic, and there have been problems in the Church (true enough), but apparently he has done little introspection of his own policy failures. God’s moral standard is perfection, a worthy goal set for imperfect humans. Our problems come when replacing God’s standard with our own (or Dr. Fauci’s).
Dr. Fauci openly mixed politics and science as causally as mixing a cocktail. The first casualty in politics is the truth. A man of science should know he could not serve both masters. I don’t hate him. I pity him.
The following 30-second clip during which Dr. Fauci claims he is science is a microcosm of what’s wrong with science and the public debate today:
‘Attacks on me are attacks on science’: Fauci blasts critics in fiery TV appearance (msn.com)
Dr. Fauci confuses public policy with science. Public policy (should we have mask mandates, should we impose restrictions on gatherings, should we close schools, should we lockdown, etc.) should be guided by science and facts, but there are multiple other considerations: what are the economic impacts? What are the legal considerations? What are long-term consequences not just the short term benefits of such policies? How are individual freedoms impacted? Fauci wants us to believe his decrees on public policy and lifestyle are science. They are not. They are two different categories.
Science once said to measure intelligence by measuring skull sizes.
Notions about the infallibility of science and allegiance to folks like Dr. Fauci led us to the situation we are in today.
Debate among medical professionals themselves is squelched, truth is secondary, and science takes a back seat to politics. Dr. Fauci did not follow the truth regarding COVID. That’s his legacy. I don’t hate him because he represented a political point of view. I distrusted him because he didn’t level with the public and stifled debate on significant policy issues.
Seek the Truth 
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